Results for “compliance” — Page 37

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Market Survey 2020: Commercial Clinical Decision Support Systems and Wellness Tools

For long-duration, deep space exploration missions, current methods for managing and supporting crew health and medical conditions will be unsuitable. Communication and data transmission lags will necessitate the use of a sophisticated clinical decision support system (CDSS) that will tailor diagnosis and treatment guidance that is context-sensitive for anticipated astronaut health, wellness, and medical conditions. A variety of clinical decision support (CDS) and wellness tools (WT) are currently available in the commercial market and a broad-brush survey of this market can provide an initial impression of the current state of the art which, in turn, can inform the roadmap of NASA deep space CDSS development and associated requirements. Such a survey was undertaken during the first six months of 2020 using directed convenience sampling to obtain information provided by vendors on their websites; both commercially available CDS and WT (such as those used to track and monitor nutrition, exercise, and sleep) were included. Areas assessed were item type (e.g., software/application, device); primary purpose of the item (e.g., diagnostic support, nutrition tracking); additional purposes (if any); reported features, capabilities, and functionality; setting of use (e.g., inpatient, outpatient); intended user (e.g., clinician, patient); location and sources of data/information used or produced by the item; integration with patient electronic health record (EHR); compliance with interoperability ontologies and standards (e.g., Health Level 7 [HL7], Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine – Clinical Terminology [SNOMED-CT]); and whether the item is knowledge-based (derived from research findings) or non-knowledge-based (derived through artificial intelligence, machine learning, advanced probability and statistics), among others. Ninety-seven (97) vendor websites describing 196 CDS and 73 WT (269 total) were reviewed and coded. The primary purpose of the majority of CDS reviewed is diagnosis or diagnosis/treatment/drug decision support—targeted for clinician use— and the primary purpose of the majority of WT reviewed is the monitoring of different health metrics, most often through the use of a biosensor device (e.g., blood pressure)—targeted for patient use. Very few CDS or WT appear to comply with major international interoperability standards or can be integrated with a patient’s EHR data. None consider contextual factors, such as conditions of the physical environment (e.g., CO2 levels). The majority of CDS and WT reviewed are non-knowledge, cloud- or web-based applications or software. Forty-three (43) major findings were identified and the implications those findings have for NASA will be discussed. Example major findings include: CDS-WT capabilities range from diagnosis to treatment applications, CDS-WT may be wearable or non-wearable and are technologically advanced and only a few CDS-WT tools referenced compliance to ensure interoperability, among other findings. Recommendations will also be offered that will help to address ExMC Gap, Medical-701: Enhance medical capabilities within an exploration medical system.

market survey↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Orbital Debris Mitigation Requirements Applied to Batteries

This presentation reviews the current state of NASA orbital debris mitigation requirements with respect to spacecraft batteries. NASA requirements address the probability of accidental explosion during and after mission operations, and probability of human casualty resulting from reentry. Excluding post-mission explosion, these probabilities must be evaluated against quantitative limits. Reentry demisability models provide the quantitative results to assess compliance with the casualty threshold. Some projects show compliance with the explosion requirement using manufacturers’ stated component or assembly reliabilities, while others cite similarity with past accepted projects. With the required threshold included in the USG ODMSP, NASA encourages the use of – and seeks – standardized methods to help quantify the probability of accidental explosion.

Batteries↗

NASA NTRS2017

Navigation automation for the Soil Moisture Active Passive observatory

Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) is a NASA Earth science mission designed to measure soil moisture content and freeze/thaw cycles over a three-year period. This paper presents a 2-year summary of navigation performance, shows navigation compliance (and non-compliance) with Science Orbit Requirements, and describes how automated processes appreciably reduced the size of the navigation team.

Lee, Julim↗

NASA NTRS2019

JPSS-2 VIIRS Version 1 spectral characterization and performance assessment

The JPSS-2 VIIRS instrument is set to be the third VIIRS instrument when it launches in 2022 following S-NPP and NOAA-20 VIIRS which launched in October 2011and November 2017, respectively. To date JPSS-2 VIIRS has undergone extensive pre-launch testing at the instrument system level to determine the radiometric, spatial, and spectral performance. Spectral testing was conducted by the instrument vendor, Raytheon Corporation, at their test facility in mid-to-late 2017 with a test configuration that utilized a double monochrometer with illumination provided by tungsten lamp and ceramic glow bar to cover the full spectral range. The purpose of these measurements was to measure the relative spectral response curve and assess the spectral characteristics necessary to determine compliance with the sensor design requirements. In addition to Raytheon team, the spectral measurements were analyzed by an independent government team with members from NASA, the University of Wisconsin, and Aerospace Corporation. Two RSR curves were released by the government team from this data set: a version 0 release which was the verified RSR as calculated by Raytheon, and version 1 which was the RSR assessment from the government team. The results discussed here are those of the government team (version 1) including the independent assessment of sensor compliance and a comparison of the JPSS-2 VIIRS spectral characteristics with the two previous VIIRS instruments. The version 1 RSR was publicly released to the science community in the fall of 2018, and remains available for their use.

VIIRS↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Preliminary Study of Inter-Facility LWC Differences in Appendix C and Supercooled Large Drop Conditions due to Calibration Instruments

The simulation of clouds containing Supercooled Large Droplets has received increasing attention due to the introduction of Appendix O and future associated requirements for means of compliance. Supercooled Large Droplet conditions can cover four orders of magnitude in drop sizes, imposing a larger instrument measurement challenge than for Appendix C conditions. Wind tunnel facilities have adopted different instrumentation for liquid water content measurement, with fundamentally different principles of operation. In order to explore the comparability of the different instruments used for Appendix C and SLD measurement, and its impact on confidence in measurements used for means of compliance, a project was established to conduct a series of dedicated tests at three wind tunnel facilities. To date, liquid water content measurements have been completed using a Multi-Element sensor as the common instrument at two of the facilities. The data have provided preliminary information suggesting that substantial inter-facility differences likely exist in liquid water content estimates in Supercooled Large Droplet conditions that appear to be largely attributable to the choice of calibration instruments. These results are dependent on the assumption that the Multi-Element probe would produce equivalent measurements at the two facilities if the liquid water content were the same, regardless of other environmental differences that may exist between the two facilities. Planned further testing with other liquid water content measurement techniques may provide further information to confirm or refute the results of this study.

aircraft icing↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Preliminary Study of Inter-Facility LWC Differences in Appendix C and Supercooled Large Droplet Conditions due to Calibration Instruments

The simulation of clouds containing Supercooled Large Droplets has received increasing attention due to the introduction of Appendix O and future associated requirements for means of compliance. Supercooled Large Droplet conditions can cover four orders of magnitude in drop sizes, imposing a larger instrument measurement challenge than for Appendix C conditions. Wind tunnel facilities have adopted different instrumentation for liquid water content measurement, with fundamentally different principles of operation. In order to explore the comparability of the different instruments used for Appendix C and SLD measurement, and its impact on confidence in measurements used for means of compliance, a project was established to conduct a series of dedicated tests at three wind tunnel facilities. To date, liquid water content measurements have been completed using a Multi-Element sensor as the common instrument at two of the facilities. The data have provided preliminary information suggesting that substantial inter-facility differences likely exist in liquid water content estimates in Supercooled Large Droplet conditions that appear to be largely attributable to the choice of calibration instruments. These results are dependent on the assumption that the Multi-Element probe would produce equivalent measurements at the two facilities if the liquid water content were the same, regardless of other environmental differences that may exist between the two facilities. Planned further testing with other liquid water content measurement techniques may provide further information to confirm or refute the results of this study.

aircraft icing↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Life Sciences Portal (NLSP): Supporting Scientific Transparency and Reproducibility

NASA’s Life Sciences Ports (NLSP) serves the scientific community by providing curated data from space life science experiment. The Human Research Program (HRP) with the help of NLSP is currently transforming their life sciences data archive systems and processes to improve compliance with the FAIR principles [1]. Some of these improvements will at the same time support the twin pillars of Open Science [2]: transparency of methods and reproducibility of results. Scientific transparency is marked by the easily intelligible communication of what has been investigated: what were the procedures for collecting sample and the characteristics of samples collected? what kinds of measurements were made, what were the environmental conditions of the measurements? What were the analysis techniques of the collected data? Reproducibility of the results and findings from the investigation requires a high level of transparency for all but the simplest investigations; the slightest deviation in communicating and replicating complex experimental procedures or data analyses can often yield quite different data and even findings, thwarting their validation. One of the ways the NLSP is aiming to improve the communication of scientific information is through the use of ontology-driven metadata. Ontologies are powerful, graph-based knowledge representation structures, which can be leveraged to increase data interoperability, the area of the FAIR principles in which many data systems most lack compliance. Over the past decade, there has been a concerted effort in the biomedical community to develop modular and narrowly focused domain and application-specific ontologies in a common, open-source framework, the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry [3]. The open sharing and modular nature of this effort promises huge increases in harmonized data sharing for systems that leverage these models. Which is in line with the FAIR Data Principles of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse for scientific data management and stewardship. 1. Wilkinson, M.D., et al., The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Sci Data, 2016. 3: p. 160018. 2. National Academies of Sciences, E. and Medicine, Open Science by Design: Realizing a Vision for 21st Century Research. 2018, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 232. 3. Smith, B., et al., The OBO Foundry: coordinated evolution of ontologies to support biomedical data integration. Nat Biotechnol, 2007. 25(11): p. 1251-5.

Life Sciences data↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Gateway Program Safety and Mission Assurance Integration - the Future of Safe Deep Space Human Exploration

As a foundational element of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Artemis Campaign, the Gateway is an incrementally built cislunar spacecraft that will serve as a platform for deep space human exploration, science, and technology demonstration. The Gateway will be a unifying catalyst for international partners around the world to establish sustained deep space scientific investigations, lunar surface access, and missions to Mars. As human exploration moves farther away from Earth, spacecraft designs must prioritize and optimize mass and volume allocations, while minimizing human and spacecraft risk. To accomplish this objective, the Gateway Program Safety and Mission Assurance functions develop, implement, and ensure compliance with requirements, in concert with the accurate characterization and transparent communication of residual hazard risks, for integrated safety, reliability and maintainability and quality assurance. Safety and Mission Assurance was a key contributor during Gateway program pre-formulation and formulation activities where safety and reliability analysis was embedded in the Gateway Systems Engineering and Integration team. During these early program stages, a preliminary Gateway Integrated Hazard Analysis and Preliminary Gateway Probabilistic Risk Assessment assisted in Gateway architectural and operational definition as part of a risk-informed design process. As the deep space architecture has matured, the integrated Safety and Mission Assurance analyses have matured, new safety review processes have been developed, and requirements have been refined to ensure compliance with integrated safety and mission assurance objectives. The Gateway Program is currently concluding the preliminary design review informed milestone, where the primary objectives included: - Ensured completeness and consistency of the preliminary design, including the meeting of all requirements within appropriate margins and acceptable risk posture. - Identification of any major issues moving forward to the Critical Design phase. At this milestone, Safety and Mission Assurance provided numerous products, including Gateway Top Risks and Risk Mitigation Plans, updated integrated hazard analyses, updated probabilistic risk assessment, Crew Survival Analysis Report, and updated Safety and Mission Assurance Requirements and Plans. These products provide a many-faceted perspective on the inherent risk and available mitigations involved in flying the current proposed vehicle design and anticipated stack configurations. In addition, Safety and Mission Assurance identified top technical, process and workforce concerns to be addressed as the program progresses toward the critical design phase. This paper will detail the evolution of the Gateway Program Safety and Mission Assurance integration functions, provide its current status and lessons learned for future human spaceflight programs. Throughout this paper the key tenets of the Gateway Program Safety and Mission Assurance will be discussed: - Application of a risk-informed approach to identify and mitigate areas of highest risk. - Leverage of valuable processes and lessons learned from earlier spaceflight programs. - Development of Safety and Mission Assurance products to inform design risk trades. - Utilization of common Safety and Mission Assurance practices to identify safety risks for multiple perspectives: top-down, bottom-up, and across lines of integration. - Approval of safety hazards at the appropriate level of authority, keeping most deliberation closest to design expertise and elevating risks of greatest concern for program-level consideration. - Championing of Safety and Mission Assurance processes and forums to foster a pervasive safety culture that is transparent, inclusive, and collaborative between all partners. These tenets have allowed the Gateway Safety and Mission Assurance function to play a key role in optimized vehicle design evolution, and early identification and mitigation of Gateway program and Artemis mission risk.

Helen Vaccaro↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Advanced Modeling of Control-Structure Interaction in Thrust Vector Control Systems

The Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage (CS) Thrust Vector Control (TVC) system is comprised of 8 mechanical feedback Shuttle heritage Type III TVC actuators and four RS-25 engines, each attached to a Shuttle heritage gimbal block/bearing. Two actuators are used to move each engine in two planes perpendicular to one another (i.e., pitch and yaw). The TVC system design leverages hardware from the Space Shuttle program as well as new hardware designed specifically for the Core Stage. During the development of the SLS TVC system, a family of advanced dynamics models were developed to extend and compliment the simplified quasi-linear “simplex” model historically used for flight control design and stability analysis. The importance of these advanced models became increasingly evident after ambient and hot fire testing of the Core Stage, which revealed a number of findings associated with the dynamic response of the TVC integrated system. Test responses suggested that the TVC did not meet its performance specifications and its step and frequency responses exhibited unexpected departures from prior lab tests and modeled behavior. One driving factor for these results was a higher-than-expected degree of coupling between the TVC system, the engine dynamics, and the Core Stage structure. This paper is the third installment in a seven-paper series surveying the design, engineering, test validation, and flight performance of the Core Stage Thrust Vector Control system. In this paper, a new method of modeling rocket vehicle thrust vectoring servoelastic dynamics is presented. In this approach, the load dynamics are replaced by a detailed finite element model containing both the rigid body and elastic modes. A partitioning technique is used to compute the effective compliance from the modal data and obtain accurate simulation results using a reduced number of generalized coordinates. Coupled backup structure and nozzle attach compliance effects on multiple engines are captured in higher fidelity than with a spring approximation, eliciting novel effects due to the complex load paths involved in the Core Stage structure. Validation of the model is demonstrated using a variety of structural/modal, laboratory, and full-scale hot fire test data.

Launch Vehicles↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Advanced Modeling of Control-Structure Interaction in Thrust Vector Control Systems

The Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage (CS) Thrust Vector Control (TVC) system is comprised of 8 mechanical feedback Shuttle heritage Type III TVC actuators and four RS-25 engines, each attached to a Shuttle heritage gimbal block/bearing. Two actuators are used to move each engine in two planes perpendicular to one another (i.e., pitch and yaw). The TVC system design leverages hardware from the Space Shuttle program as well as new hardware designed specifically for the Core Stage. During the development of the SLS TVC system, a family of advanced dynamics models were developed to extend and compliment the simplified quasi-linear “simplex” model historically used for flight control design and stability analysis. The importance of these advanced models became increasingly evident after ambient and hot fire testing of the Core Stage, which revealed a number of findings associated with the dynamic response of the TVC integrated system. Test responses suggested that the TVC did not meet its performance specifications and its step and frequency responses exhibited unexpected departures from prior lab tests and modeled behavior. One driving factor for these results was a higher-than-expected degree of coupling between the TVC system, the engine dynamics, and the Core Stage structure. This paper is the third installment in a seven-paper series surveying the design, engineering, test validation, and flight performance of the Core Stage Thrust Vector Control system. In this paper, a new method of modeling rocket vehicle thrust vectoring servoelastic dynamics is presented. In this approach, the load dynamics are replaced by a detailed finite element model containing both the rigid body and elastic modes. A partitioning technique is used to compute the effective compliance from the modal data and obtain accurate simulation results using a reduced number of generalized coordinates. Coupled backup structure and nozzle attach compliance effects on multiple engines are captured in higher fidelity than with a spring approximation, eliciting novel effects due to the complex load paths involved in the Core Stage structure. Validation of the model is demonstrated using a variety of structural/modal, laboratory, and full-scale hot fire test data.

Launch Vehicles↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Life Sciences Portal (NLSP): Supporting Scientific Transparency and Reproducibility

NASA’s Life Sciences Ports (NLSP) serves the scientific community by providing curated data from space life science experiment. The Human Research Program (HRP) with the help of NLSP is currently transforming their life sciences data archive systems and processes to improve compliance with the FAIR principles [1]. Some of these improvements will at the same time support the twin pillars of Open Science [2]: transparency of methods and reproducibility of results. Scientific transparency is marked by the easily intelligible communication of what has been investigated: what were the procedures for collecting sample and the characteristics of samples collected? what kinds of measurements were made, what were the environmental conditions of the measurements? What were the analysis techniques of the collected data? Reproducibility of the results and findings from the investigation requires a high level of transparency for all but the simplest investigations; the slightest deviation in communicating and replicating complex experimental procedures or data analyses can often yield quite different data and even findings, thwarting their validation. One of the ways the NLSP is aiming to improve the communication of scientific information is through the use of ontology-driven metadata. Ontologies are powerful, graph-based knowledge representation structures, which can be leveraged to increase data interoperability, the area of the FAIR principles in which many data systems most lack compliance. Over the past decade, there has been a concerted effort in the biomedical community to develop modular and narrowly focused domain and application-specific ontologies in a common, open-source framework, the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry [3]. The open sharing and modular nature of this effort promises huge increases in harmonized data sharing for systems that leverage these models. Which is in line with the FAIR Data Principles of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse for scientific data management and stewardship.

Life Sciences data↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

An MBSE Framework to Identify Regulatory Gaps for Electrified Transport Aircraft

A typical aircraft certification process consists of obtaining a type, production, airworthiness, and continued airworthiness certificates. During this process, a type certification plan is created that includes the intended regulatory operating environment, the proposed certification basis, means of compliance, and a list of documentation to show compliance. Earlier work by the authors demonstrated a model-based framework for the management of these certification artifacts for normal category airplanes. Presently, it is expanded and adapted to consider certification for transport category airplanes regulated under 14 CFR Part 25, providing clear transparency and traceability between the text of the regulations and imposed requirements, contextual information, and specified test activities. In particular, a capability to identify potential gaps in the applicability of regulations for novel architectures such as electrified aircraft is proposed. This capability, based on mismatches between the functional intent and the corresponding prescribed physical implementation, is developed. A sample implementation of the proposed capability is presented for a notional electrified powertrain aircraft architecture.

electrified transport aircraft↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Effects of Communication Modality on Pilot-Controller Coordination during a Simulated m:N Operation

The last decade or so has seen growing interest in new control paradigms and concepts of operation for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) in which multiple aircraft are piloted remotely by a single or relatively small number of people. Referred to as “one-to-many” and “many-to- many” (alternatively, “multi-operator, multi-vehicle”)—and frequently expressed as the corresponding ratios, 1:N and m:N—such novel configurations of aircraft and the people who manage them are seen as critical to the path to future operations involving UAS. Examples of industry domains interested in these control paradigms are small package delivery services utilizing small UAS and passenger-carrying, short-range “Urban Air Mobility” (UAM) operations. Stakeholders in such operations have identified communication and coordination of flight activity with air traffic controllers (ATC) as a barrier to operations. In contrast to present-day flight operations, in which a pilot communicates with one ATC on one radio frequency for one aircraft, multi-vehicle operations potentially entail a significant increase in pilot task load for management of comms. New concepts, such as UAS Service Suppliers (USSs) and Providers of Services to UAM (PSUs), have been proposed to address the known bottleneck for Air Traffic Management (ATM) presented by multi-vehicle operations. While progress has been steadily made over years developing USSs and PSUs, it is generally expected that initial UAM operations will rely on traditional voice-over-radio communication with ATC for purposes of ATM. The current study was a human-in-the-loop simulation that had participants, each possessing a Private Pilot License, act as the ground-based pilot-in- command for multiple vehicles in a hypothetical UAM service in the San Francisco Bay Area. The experiment utilized a 2-by-3, within-subjects design in which the pilot’s Vehicle Load (4 vs. 12) and Comm System (Voice, Datalink, and a Hybrid) were manipulated. The task given to pilots was to use the Comm System to coordinate flight activity for all aircraft with appropriate controllers, having to obtain departure and arrival clearances at “vertiport” facilities and transition clearances for any intermediate airspaces along the route. Pilots were additionally responsible for compliance with vectoring instructions issued by ATC. Subjective workload questionnaires (NASA-TLX) were administered following each experimental trial. Screen recordings of the pilot’s Ground Control Station (GCS) and audio recordings of trials were subsequently coded to obtain performance metrics: response times and error rates. Presented in this paper are results related to pilot responses to vectoring instructions issued by ATC. Workload was found to be significantly higher in the 12-Vehicle condition compared to the 4-Vehicle condition, nearly maxing out the NASA-TLX overall workload scale. There was no significant difference made by the Comm System on workload ratings. Pilots’ response times to communications were fastest in the Voice condition, although overall “service time” for compliance was shorter in Datalink and Hybrid conditions in most cases. Errors by pilots were frequent in both Vehicle Load conditions, most perniciously when using the Voice system. The results of this study suggest tradeoffs in advantages and disadvantages of the three comm systems. Recommendations for communication system design are provided taking the tradeoffs into account.

Garrett G Sadler↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Effects of Communication Modality on Pilot-Controller Coordination during a Simulated m:N Operation

The last decade or so has seen growing interest in new control paradigms and concepts of operation for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) in which multiple aircraft are piloted remotely by a single or relatively small number of people. Referred to as “one-to-many” and “many-to- many” (alternatively, “multi-operator, multi-vehicle”)—and frequently expressed as the corresponding ratios, 1:N and m:N—such novel configurations of aircraft and the people who manage them are seen as critical to the path to future operations involving UAS. Examples of industry domains interested in these control paradigms are small package delivery services utilizing small UAS and passenger-carrying, short-range “Urban Air Mobility” (UAM) operations. Stakeholders in such operations have identified communication and coordination of flight activity with air traffic controllers (ATC) as a barrier to operations. In contrast to present-day flight operations, in which a pilot communicates with one ATC on one radio frequency for one aircraft, multi-vehicle operations potentially entail a significant increase in pilot task load for management of comms. New concepts, such as UAS Service Suppliers (USSs) and Providers of Services to UAM (PSUs), have been proposed to address the known bottleneck for Air Traffic Management (ATM) presented by multi-vehicle operations. While progress has been steadily made over years developing USSs and PSUs, it is generally expected that initial UAM operations will rely on traditional voice-over-radio communication with ATC for purposes of ATM. The current study was a human-in-the-loop simulation that had participants, each possessing a Private Pilot License, act as the ground-based pilot-in- command for multiple vehicles in a hypothetical UAM service in the San Francisco Bay Area. The experiment utilized a 2-by-3, within-subjects design in which the pilot’s Vehicle Load (4 vs. 12) and Comm System (Voice, Datalink, and a Hybrid) were manipulated. The task given to pilots was to use the Comm System to coordinate flight activity for all aircraft with appropriate controllers, having to obtain departure and arrival clearances at “vertiport” facilities and transition clearances for any intermediate airspaces along the route. Pilots were additionally responsible for compliance with vectoring instructions issued by ATC. Subjective workload questionnaires (NASA-TLX) were administered following each experimental trial. Screen recordings of the pilot’s Ground Control Station (GCS) and audio recordings of trials were subsequently coded to obtain performance metrics: response times and error rates. Presented in this paper are results related to pilot responses to vectoring instructions issued by ATC. Workload was found to be significantly higher in the 12-Vehicle condition compared to the 4-Vehicle condition, nearly maxing out the NASA-TLX overall workload scale. There was no significant difference made by the Comm System on workload ratings. Pilots’ response times to communications were fastest in the Voice condition, although overall “service time” for compliance was shorter in Datalink and Hybrid conditions in most cases. Errors by pilots were frequent in both Vehicle Load conditions, most perniciously when using the Voice system. The results of this study suggest tradeoffs in advantages and disadvantages of the three comm systems. Recommendations for communication system design are provided taking the tradeoffs into account.

urban air mobility↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

What Is the OPP Approach to the Next Generation of Laboratory Requirements

Planetary Protection Quality Management System NASA’s Office of Planetary Protection uses a quality-based process evaluation approach to verify planetary protection bioburden compliance over a project’s life cycle. The verification strategy shifts from a comparative direct assay approach validating hardware bioburden at a “moment in time,” to one that implements a continual quality assurance demonstration of the analytical process via established data requirements, laboratory operational, and management parameters throughout the mission’s entire assembly process. Laboratory quality-based systems and management strategies are standardized and implemented across government and industry. A standardized laboratory quality system approach increases transparency throughout the project’s life cycle and aligns planetary protection analytical approaches with government and industry practices to support both NASA and commercial endeavors. Strategies include the implementation of a laboratory quality management structure that documents and routinely validates parameters critical to experimental design and data collection, provides data quality assessment parameters, and ultimately validates that the collected data is of sufficient quality and quantity to meet the specified technical goals. Planetary protection can draw on these practices to provide a systematic process-based quality approach to support planetary protection validation and compliance requirements. Quality approaches including data quality objectives, method performance, data acceptance criteria and the associated laboratory quality management system are presented to provide an overview and framework for a planetary protection laboratory quality management system.

Amy Baker↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion Integration Concepts: Primary Fuel Cells and Cryogenic Hydrogen Storage

This presentation leverages lessons learned from the multiple activities funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) to convey development paths for implementing an Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP) system powered by primary fuel cells systems and fueled by cryogenically stored hydrogen. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with all aspects of hydrogen-fueled aviation, this work minimizes required energy and time per payload distance at take-off so as to reduce emissions associated with ground operations and the production, liquefaction, transfer, and storage of hydrogen. The approach targets efficient system integration, maximizing hydrogen utilization efficiency, maximizing power system efficiency, and viable operational concepts for delivered payload distances. The discussion outlines the performance and compliance challenges revealed by analyses of current fuel cell and cryogenic management technologies. The conclusion offers potential mitigation strategies to the identified the performance and compliance challenges.

Fuel Cell↗

NASA NTRS2022

SoMoGym: A Toolkit for Developing and Evaluating Controllers and Reinforcement Learning Algorithms for Soft Robots

Soft robotsoffer a host of benefits over traditional rigid robots, including inherent compliance that lets them passively adapt to variable environments and operate safely around humans and fragile objects. However, that same compliance makes it hard to use model-based methods in planning tasks requiring high precision or complex actuation sequences. Reinforcement learning (RL) can potentially find effective control policies, but training RL using physical soft robots is often infeasible, and training using simulations has had a high barrier to adoption. To accelerate research in control and RL for soft robotic systems, we introduce SoMoGym ( So ft Mo tion Gym ), a software toolkit that facilitates training and evaluating controllers for continuum robots. SoMoGym provides a set of benchmark tasks in which soft robots interact with various objects and environments. It allows evaluation of performance on these tasks for controllers of interest, and enables the use of RL to generate new controllers. Custom environments and robots can likewise be added easily. We provide and evaluate baseline RL policies for each of the benchmark tasks. These results show that SoMoGym enables the use of RL for continuum robots, a class of robots not covered by existing benchmarks, giving them the capability to autonomously solve tasks that were previously unattainable.

Moritz A. Graule↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Computational Assessment of the Opening Mode Facesheet-to-Core Fracture Toughness of a Thin-Gage Facesheet Sandwich Structure

The single-cantilevered beam test (SCB) is currently being considered for standardization for measuring the opening mode fracture toughness of sandwich structures subjected to facesheet-to-core separation. At present, the Area method is considered the benchmark method for determining energy required to propagate the crack. This method is problematic since it requires periodic unloading and cannot be evaluated instantaneously. Therefore, a method is needed to accurately and instantaneously calculate opening mode fracture toughness. In previous work, SCB tests with thin-gauge facesheets were performed to compare the J-integral approach to data reduction methods including the Modified Beam Theory (MBT) and the Area method. Large deviations (over 10%) in the calculated fracture toughness were observed between the J-integral and MBT for large displacements. In this study, a simulated SCB experiment using a virtual crackclosure technique was performed to assess the previously observed discrepancies. The predicted load displacement response, the predicted angle at the load application point, and the predicted crack growth results are in good agreement (within 5%) with the corresponding experimental data. Using the predicted load and angles, the predicted J-integral is in good agreement (within 10%) with the experimentally obtained solution. Using the MBT approach, the previously observed deviations in the fracture toughness were determined to be associated with the empirical extrapolation procedure to estimate the crack-root rotation correction from nonlinear compliance curves. The nonlinear compliance is determined to be associated with large displacement effects observed within the predicted and experimental results.

Sandwich Composite↗